Framing Atrocity: Photography and Humanitarianism

This article examines the evolution of atrocity photography and its links with humanitarian movements in the late nineteenth century. It argues that photographic images and the language of atrocity must be studied together in order to appreciate the relationship between them which was encapsulated in a genre depicting the ravaged or mutilated body. Three moments in the evolution of the relationship between humanitarianism, photography and atrocity are considered: the Bulgarian ‘atrocities’ of the late 1870s; the Indian Famine in the Madras and Bombay Presidencies of 1876–78; and the campaign to reform conditions in the Belgian Congo between 1903 and 1913.